Former Raynham dog track will seek slots license with plans for a hotel, movie theater and bowling alley

Raynham Park will enter the bidding for the state’s lone slots parlor license with plans to build a hotel, movie theater and bowling alley at the old dog racing track, its owner told the News Service on Tuesday.

Raynham Park will enter the bidding for the state’s lone slots parlor license with plans to build a hotel, movie theater and bowling alley at the old dog racing track, its owner told the News Service on Tuesday.

“If given the opportunity I would create a lot of jobs and a lot of money for the state,” owner George Carney said during an impromptu interview in the facility’s simulcast betting parlor.

Carney said his plans envision a commuter rail stop on the long-planned extension of service between Boston and New Bedford, which has not yet been permitted or funded. He said it was his understanding that the state is planning to put a station along the tracks next to the park, and said it’s possible that an agreement would include some station funding from his part.

“That will be part of the discussions when it gets further along,” Carney said.

Raynham will join its rival Plainridge Racecourse in pursuit of the slots license. A July 16 report commissioned by the Massachusetts Gaming Commission said that Plainridge would seek a slots license and said Raynham was “vetting” potential partners for a slots license application.

That report also noted that if Plainridge failed in its slots bid it would cease racing. At Gov. Deval Patrick’s insistence, the gaming law approved in late 2011 included just one competitively bid slots license rather than “no-bid contracts” for racetracks seeking slots license, as he described earlier iterations.

The 2011 gaming law allows one slots facility in Massachusetts with up 1,250 slot machines. The successful licensee will need to make a minimum capital investment of $125 million and the minimum license fee would be $25 million. The state will receive revenues from a 40 percent tax on slot facility revenues.

The plans for Raynham go beyond simply adding slot machines to the simulcast parlor, which was nearly empty Tuesday evening before close. Greyhound racing ceased at the facility after voters in 2008 banned the sport, but betting on horse and greyhound races simulcast from other tracks has continued.

Carney said his plans jibed with the hopes of state officials that a slots parlor would be “not just a building with a lot of slot machines.” Carney also gave well wishes to the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe’s endeavor to build a resort casino in nearby Taunton and said he hoped the tribe would succeed.

“I’ve always operated under the idea that competition is good for business. When people have a monopoly they don’t have to work as hard to run the operation,” said Carney. He said his plans had been in the works for years, dating back to the Weld administration, and said he had earned the trust of people in the area.

“The people in town have indicated they’d be very happy to have the additional revenue and the jobs,” Carney said, adding, “They kind of know what to expect from me.”

Page 2 of 2 - The 2011 gaming law allowed for up to three resort casino licenses along with one slots parlor license. State officials will start accepting the $400,000 early application fees from groups interested in gaming licenses on Thursday, though Carney said he was not sure whether he would submit the fee early.

According to the Boston Globe, Plainridge owner Gary Piontkowski arrived at Tuesday’s Gaming Commission meeting along with a $400,000 check in hand, just in case the commission started accepting the fees at that meeting.

“I’ve been waiting 15 years to officially become an applicant,” Piontkowski reportedly said. “For my partners and I, we’ve worked very hard to get to this day. It’s like a christening.”

Carney got into his family’s dog track business in 1942, at the age of 14 making $4 per night, which he claimed was “more money than a school teacher was making a week” at the time. Carney said he dropped out of school in ninth grade and as an adult bought a dog track in Taunton, consolidating the Taunton and Raynham tracks into the Raynham-Taunton in Raynham.

The plans for the more than 100 acres Carney owns around the track include a commuter rail stop where the unused kennels now sit, and where Carney said an old train station had sat along the since abandoned railway, which leads through Stoughton and onto Boston. While the region has long sought commuter rail service from Boston leading through Taunton, Fall River and on to New Bedford, its construction is far from guaranteed.

The state’s transportation plans have worked to the benefit of the Raynham track in the past, Carney said, with the completion of nearby Interstate 495.

On Tuesday, the Gaming Commission said it would allow potential developers to submit application fees this week, thereby establishing that those developers were serious about actually building a gambling establishment; Carney said he had not yet decided on whether he would submit fees ahead of the actual application.

Carney also said he was not “sad” about Massachusetts voters’ decision to outlaw dog racing in the state about four years ago. Dog racing was allowed to continue up until Jan. 1, 2010.